When One Can Afford Interludes

Subtitle: A Story by Your Author

It all started at a time I don’t remember, and a place I don’t recall. So, one may ask of me, what it is. This is a story of aliens. No, not aliens. Something beyond. Beyond ourselves and also beyond aliens, and also beyond imagination! Also I recall the place.

We found ourselves in as poorly a written story as ever– you guessed it: 200 feet deep in Grenektian mud…

Due to bad intel, things had gone all wrong. I was standing beside a lead scientist, who was contacting his Manager.
“The President of Space has been captured by these ‘worms’. Had no clue they were even here, we have some smaller, similar specimens, but these are made up of something entirely different. They don’t show up on any scans, and certainly didn’t show up on the planet-scan. My Manager, please advise, this is only a research thtation– station. Sorry, I bit my tongue earlier in the attack.”
“Manager here. How many of the President’s armed forces remain?”
“Three, but they’re leaving to go rescue him. They want some of our security forces, and any scientists that think they can help, to go with them.”
“Then go with them. I will make sure their backup arrives swiftly.”

We were fast on the trail of these freaky-deaky clear-purple, kinda millipede-worms. About thirty feet long each. While the President of Space was giving his speech, four of them came up, surrounding the crowd. Someone somehow hurt one of them, but they killed about eight of us, capturing eleven, including the President.

We followed in two small HXNRovers, down the holes these creatures left. The groups traversed these intricate tunnels directly into a large expanse. There were thousands of these translucent things, all over the walls, and just piles of them, squirming all over the ground. As soon as we saw the President of Space and fellow captives strapped to the back of a few of them with a thick mucus membrane, the security forces opened fire, including myself. The beasts were largely unaffected by our pulse ammo, but it did draw their attention, and they began to focus an attacking front towards us.

That’s when I saw it, though. We all did. We saw it, the Gravity Surge. We’d only read articles on it on the Network. The entire chamber felt heavier. It started by taking out the ones near us by hand, tearing them apart. I still don’t understand how he could do what our weapons could not. It, or he, then began using some form of energy blasts, and in a flash, everything was dead.

On the surface, I was able to muster a question ‘Why? Why did you save us?’ When he responded, it was singularly the most preternatural voice I’d ever heard. Haunting, digital, and ominous.

“My power, this act means nothing… I did what was asked of. The universe holds only indifference towards life and death. My drive towards death can adapt to direction.” He then jumped into the sky, and never returned. We all felt a great weight lift off of our shoulders once he was gone, and breathed a sigh of relief.